NEW: Grand Hyatt on track to open in February 2008
 

Convention Center's Grand Hyatt on track to open in February 2008

Web Posted: 01/09/2007 04:00 PM CST

Melissa S. Monroe
Express-News Business Writer
The city's Convention Center hotel developer said Tuesday that it's on target to open the Grand Hyatt in February 2008.

Austin-based Faulkner USA said that despite weather delays and other "construction related challenges," the company has added more construction shifts to meet its February 2008 opening.

The 1,000-room Grand Hyatt hotel, adjacent to the Convention Center, will boast about 90,000 square feet of meeting space and 147 residential condos on several of the top floors.

The hotel's bookings are strong, even with more than a year to go before it opens.

"To date we are on pace to have the highest amount of bookings for any Hyatt for our 2008 opening, and we have a year to go," said Scott Lane, Hyatt's director of sales and marketing. "The booking pace is more than we anticipated. We thought it would be brisk, but it's coming in stronger."

Lane said when the Denver Grand Hyatt opened in December 2005, it had the most revenue on the books prior to its opening than any Hyatt in history. San Antonio's Grand Hyatt is 25 percent ahead of that.

Without giving revenue estimates, Lane said, the Grand Hyatt has a little under 300,000-hotel room nights booked and another 375,000 in tentative business. Lane said the sales staff is about 20 percent higher than where they expected to be.

w00t! Good news! Thanks matt

Wonderful news! I'm sure the scaled-down design is to thank for the early (or on time) opening. However, I saw an advertisment at The Shops and La Cantera today for Alteza and the smaller design still looks quite immpressive. Can't wait to see this thing make a dent in the skyline!

It's already visible from I-35 on either side of downtown.....I didn't think it would be that big this soon. They are currently at work on floor 4, but they are really tall.

Excellent! Just wait until they begin with the hotel floors... that guy will start rising fast (one floor every 1-1.5 weeks...perhaps less).